Bluebonnets

The bluebonnet is the state flower of Texas.

In the spring, the flowers grow along all the roads and highways and in fields in thick patches of blue. They are a beautiful wildflower. I've never seen anything like it. Utah only has sagebrush growing along the roads, and the Azaleas are quite beautiful in Houston, but they only grow in people's yards. But the bluebonnets are everywhere.

A lot of people who live in Central Texas have the tradition of taking pictures in the bluebonnets every year. I was excited to add this to our traditions as well.

Luckily they were still in bloom when I got back from Utah (I was worried they wouldn't be), so I packed the kids up and we drove down the road to a nearby field.

 The kids were mesmerized by all the flowers. I couldn't get Christine to look at me to take a picture because she wouldn't take her eyes off the amazing bunches and bunches of flowers. The smell was amazing too, I might add.

Jeff actually was pretty sick (totally my fault, I brought the bug back with us from Utah, or should I say Flu-ta) He was a good sport for coming with me and the kids.

Maybe next year when we take bluebonnet pictures again I will actually do Christine's hair and iron Jacob's shirt. haha.

Easter in Utah

Jeff mentioned last week that my Grandfather passed away 2 weeks ago. I flew out with the kids to Utah for the funeral. Since Jeff is doing a miserable rotation right now (Emergency Trauma Surgery) we figured we might as well stay in Utah for a little bit. 

I had to pack really quickly for this trip. I was doing laundry like a crazy person until 10 at night, packed up the suitcases, then left the next morning at 10 am. I packed lots of warm clothes just in case it was freezing in Utah. I was really grateful to find that it was nice and warm. In fact, my parent's lawn is greener than ours. What!?

Christine and Audrey playing in the dirt by the chicken coup. Christine has had so much fun playing with all her cousins. Her favorite cousin is Brian, because he wore a Micky Mouse t-shirt when they came out to our house a few weeks ago. Funny girl.

Christine's favorite part of Grandma's and Grandpa's house is the chickens. She loves going with Grandpa to check for eggs every day.

I didn't even realize when I was getting ready for this trip that we would be in Utah for Easter, so I didn't make ANY Easter preparations. So all the Easter treats I had picked up, Easter dress etc were all left at home. Luckily Grandma took care of that.

Christine had a great time going on an Easter egg hunt with her Grandpa.

The Easter bunny came this morning and brought Christine lots more candy than she would would have ever got at home, lucky girl! and I should add lucky mommy too because the Easter bunny brought me treats, including a Mrs. Cavanaugh's Mindy Mint egg.

February

I haven't been very good at updating our family blog, and I'm a bit behind. I'm actually in Utah at my parent's house right now. I was going through my Picasa web album to see if there were any pictures I could upload to our blog, when I found this post half written and never posted. So here you go, the month of February at the Hamaker's

February went by quickly. We spent a large portion of the month being sick. We all got to take turns going in to the doctor's office. The kids had ear infections, Christine developed a crazy rash as a reaction to the antibiotics. There was vomit in the middle of the night. It was pretty miserable. 

When everyone was healthy, we had fun playing outside. It's finally warm enough to play in the backyard again. The kids love running around.

Jacob has finally stopped trying to eat the grass.

At the end of February Jeff had a week of vacation. We tried our best to maximize our time with Jeff. Our big project was painting our armoire white. The armoire was a hand-me-down piece of furniture that I've always wanted to paint, but it's such a big project we could never tackle it in our tiny apartment. But now that we have a garage it was easy.

Do you notice what Christine is wearing? It's a surgical gown. haha! you see, when items are pulled out for a surgery but never used, even if they are never touched they are no longer considered sterile. So they are thrown away. The surgeons can rescue them from going in the trash, so Jeff brings us home things like surgical gowns that you would think could never be used. But Jeff is determined to find good uses for them.

For Valentines day Christine and I made Chicken Parmesan, with a delicious spinach artichoke fondue that we ate with a baguette and steamed broccoli.

I was afraid Jeff wouldn't get home early enough to enjoy our yummy valentine's meal, but luckily he got off early and was able to eat with us.

Jacob getting into trouble... like always.

Christine being loud... like always.

The last 8 months through my iphone

I know this is ridiculous, but I just figured out how to upload the pictures Angela messages me to my computer. It's really quite simple, but I've never taken the time to do it.  Angela's Grandpa Clarke just passed away and her and the kids went to Utah for the funeral. So I have a little kid free time to post. Angela's Grandpa was an inspiring man, a Patriarch in all the senses of the word. Though I only knew him for a little while, his influence I have felt through my wife's testimony and example. He left a legacy that will be honored for eternity. We will certainly miss him.

On that note, here are some fun memories I found on my phone.

Christine giving me a sweet smile. This was a phase that she was obsessed with playing cards. The phase ended when Jacob started eating the cards. Soggy cards aren't very fun to play with.

Christine playing with Jacob, before he learned how to crawl and get into everything. Oh those were the days.

This picture helped relieve some of my home sickness at work. I started thinking, "hmm, maybe work isn't that bad."

 Gigi-the great crawling motivator.  Or maybe Jacobs looking at Christine's big thing of balloons, thinking, "Now, I can't remember if I've ever tasted a Hello Kitty wrapped in ribbon. I think I definitely want to taste it."

For a very short time, Jacob would play nicely on the bed, while Angela took a rest and watched Project Runway. I think this only happened twice, before he realized he could jump off the bed and get Mommy to take him back out to the living room.

Christine enjoying her balloons. I had to surreptitiously pock holes in all the balloons, so that we could throw them away.

Christine: "Do you know who this is Mommy?"
 Angela: "Is it Tangie Bear?"
Christine: "No, this guy has a HUGE head!.... It's Daddy!"

Jacob learned to crawl and then to stand very quickly. He is the most active kid I have ever seen.

Jacob taking a Selfie

We got this toy at Christmas at "Other Mother" for only $20. I couldn't believe how good of shape it was in. Jacob quickly mastered it.

This is right after Frozen came out. I love this song!

                                    

Things that keep Angela happy when I have worked 26 days straight.

 Oh and Christine happy. That is powdered doughnut on her face.

Christine made her Crayon's into a house all by herself. She is so independent and creative. She also decided to cut out this piece of fabric all by herself for Tangie Bear's new dress... Angela was not very pleased. On the positive my daughter can cut a straighter line than I can.

Angela's sister, Jessica, came to visit with her kids. It was so much fun! The kids loved their cousins and were very sad to leave. Unfortunately I was not home for very long while they were here, so I didn't get to join in on much of the fun.  While they were here Bill, Jessica's husband, found out that our kitchen sink had been installed poorly and was on the brink of breaking a pipe.  Thankfully he was able to install a new one, which I think is a whole lot nicer.

Jacob has quickly learned to climb.  Here he has climbed up into the sandbox. His upper body strength is incredible. He is not much taller than the sandbox. Angela said she pulled him out and set him on the ground. When she turned back around he had climbed right back in!

Here Jacob is learning to eat solid foods. He loves his Cherrios. He only gets about 1/3 in his mouth, the other 2/3 I get stuck to my foot walking around the house.  He also has mastered his first sign. I mean he has been doing the sign for "more" and "all done" intermittently, but this sign he is adamant about.  He will clearly indicate when he would like more "Cheetos". Big surprise, since it was one of his sister's first words too.  I can't blame them, those baby Cheetos are pretty dang good, especially compared to bland rice cereal.

Thanks for all the great messages love!

Our Gardening Adventures

Angela and I have always wanted a garden and fruit trees. We have had many misadventures on our way.  

First in our apartment in Provo we decided we would grow our own tomatoes. We got some tomato starters and planted them in some pots outside of our apartment in Provo. They grew really well, but then they developed a fungus. They also got too heavy for the pots and kept falling over. So in the end we got no edible tomatoes.

We tried several experiments in our Houston apartment, including planting a peach pit and a pineapple top. Both failed!
We then tried to grow some onions.  We babied these onions for a whole year. We moved them from Houston to Temple and finally harvested them last summer.

I know, pretty pathetic, but they were sweet and tasty.  Our first, and pretty much only gardening success.

Last summer, you may recall, my father-in-law and I built a raised garden.  We composted a bunch of our fruit and randomly the cantaloupe stated growing. They grew like weeds, unfortunately they never fruited.  So unless pretty green vines count, the cantaloupe was another gardening failure.

Last summer we also planted a Zuccini starter. It grow really well, until a rabbit ate it! (little flopsy)

This year we were determined to get our farmer on, and grow something eatable. We were really excited to find a nursery near our house.  There is actually only one that we can find in the Temple/Belton area.  It's right off of Main street by HEB.  They had peach trees, which we were very excited to try.

Digging the whole proved to be way more work than expected.  It seems that when a new house is sodded they do not bother moving any rocks from the yard.  They just plant right on top of them.  So, in the end, there were so many rocks in this hole that I had to abandon my shovel and had to use a garden fork.  At the bottom of the hole I met my greatest challenge. A 50 pound behemoth. It took me over an hour just to pry it out.  The silver lining is that I had another nice huge rock for the flower bed.

Christine had a blast collecting "Macaroni rocks" from the hole to feed them to turtle. (We have no idea why she calls small rocks macaroni rocks, but she does, and she loves collecting them.) Jacob wanted to participate a little more in the fun, but was restricted to his car seat.

Thus far the peach tree has been doing well.  It had beautiful pink blossoms on it.  We attempted to protect it from the late frosts this year, wrapping it in plastic tarps and surgical gowns.  It seems to have survived and has at least 3 good sized peaches growing on it!

When we went to the Nursery to buy our peach tree we saw they had beautiful strawberry plants for sale. We bought 5 or 6 of them. We planted them, naively dreaming of a huge strawberry patch taking off in our back yard.  We ate one strawberry they had already produced. That night it was going to be cold, so I covered them up and tucked them in.  No sooner had the sun come up then the flies started attacking the plants.  The plants were too young to have insecticide sprayed on them, so I sprayed the plants around them and hung some fly paper up.  That night another frost hit, and when we went to check on our fly eaten, baby strawberry plants, the rabbits had eaten them down to the ground!!  So much for our strawberry patch! Our starters barely lasted a day!  This story might have been our worst gardening failure, had it not been for a nice nursery who gave us two more strawberry plants to plant in pots and protect.  These strawberry plants had a little frost damage, but are now doing well.

These last few months we have tried planting seeds in the garden directly, and then tried growing the seeds inside when our first planting was unsuccessful.  After trying to transplant our small seedlings to the garden and having them die. We tried again. We also planted some more seeds. We planted some starters, and we planted some vegetable left-overs.  So far the vegetable leftovers have done the best. Half of an onion is growing quite well. The bottom of a celery stalk has shot up some leaves, and left over garlic cloves are doing amazing! Last night there were two baby rabbits in the garden, so we'll see how long this vegetable garden lasts.